The present invention is related to a device for connecting a circuit or component board, provided with various electronic components, to a connection plane or back plane and in particular to a connector unit for facilitating the electrical connection of the circuit board.
In a housing or casing for electronic circuits, which is intended for e.g. small nodes in telecommunication networks, normally several various electronic circuit boards are arranged and connected. There are for these circuit boards different requirements on the manner how they should be connected to other, in particular to exterior or extra added units, i.e. on the configuration of their external wiring. In order that it will be possible to use such a housing also for such external or extra connections used in the future, it would be advantageous, if the housing and in particular the interior construction thereof could be configured in a suitable way allowing various solutions of the structure of the external wiring without any fundamental reconstruction of the structure of the housing.
It is for example desired that it will be possible to avoid external wiring at the front or top edge and at the other two, not connected edges of a circuit board, since, for a circuit board having connector means to external wires located at the free edges, those persons which are to handle a replacement of the circuit boards, must have knowledge of and be able to handle this particular wiring and the various connections thereof.
It is also generally desired that it will be possible to access the different external wires from the front or the open side of the housing. It will make it necessary to open the housing only at one side for insertion and connection of for instance a new circuit board. Then for .instance two housings or casings for circuit boards can be built into cabinets where the rear sides of the housings face each other, since for such an arrangement it will not be necessary to access the spaces at the rear sides of the housings.
In the German patent document DE-C2 32 08 991 a housing arrangement is disclosed which has the general structure for which the invention is suited. The external wiring is here located in a space or room behind the backpanel and has contact means located and accessible outside the circuit board housing itself, at one side thereof. Also in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,170 a housing arrangement is disclosed, wherein the external wiring is arranged in a space behind the back plane. The external wires are not accessible from the front of the housing.
In the published European patent application EP-A1 0 188 965 a circuit board housing is disclosed having external wiring accessible from the front but outside, on the top of the housing.
Further, from the U.S. Pat. No. 4,511,950 a backpanel for circuit boards is previously known, in which the power distribution to the individual circuit boards is provided by means of separate, smaller circuit boards arranged in the same plane as the circuit boards and having connectors aligned with the connectors of the circuit boards.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,793 a connection assembly or backpanel is disclosed having the connectors for each component board interrupted such that a line or row of contact connectors is divided into two separate groups.